Lawyer's work, church, early ranch experiences color life

Bob CampbellMidland Reporter-Telegram

Published 7:00 pm, Saturday, September 6, 2008

What Bob Bledsoe does has never been more important than how he does it.

Son of a self-taught Marfa lawyer and a schoolteacher, he grew up working on his uncle's ranch and learned strict discipline at New Mexico Military Institute before earning a law degree at the University of Texas in 1955.

Robert Chandler Bledsoe, 78, is a founding partner of a Midland law firm where his marriage of ethics to work prompted the State Bar of Texas' June 27 recognition of him as an "Outstanding 50 Year Lawyer."

He attempted a three-month trial retirement in the summer of 2002, but was back practicing oil and gas law after six weeks of golf and traveling.

"The word 'retire' is not in the Bible," said Bledsoe, who left work on two desks for an interview at Cotton Bledsoe Tighe and Dawson. "Work is a great blessing."

His aspirations and destinations clashed at two junctures, once as a freshman pre-medical student and again just out of law school.

He changed to pre-law when an NMMI faculty member at Roswell told him, "You need to get out of it because you aren't any good," and his ambition to be a trial lawyer was redirected by the Baker, Botts firm's need for oil and gas attorneys in Houston.

Working from ages 11-18 on Uncle Bill Bunton's ranch between Marfa and Presidio is one of the best memories. "I fell in love with ranching, cowboying, riding, roping and going to rodeos," he told an interviewer for a 21-page Bar booklet.

"If I could have been the foreman of a ranch, that would have been all I wanted."

His dad, Robert Irvine Bledsoe, passed the bar examination in 1933 after studying state statutes and Blackstone's Commentaries on his own, bought a ranch and dissuaded his only child from cowboy life by making him work two summers with a crew that laid a 10-mile pipeline.

"It was all done with picks and shovels and I discovered I wanted to work some place else," Bledsoe said.

He was home in the summer of 1949 when an older boy invited him on a trip to Ojinaga, Mexico. "It was an honor, but something told me not to go," he said.

"He was killed in a car wreck on the way back."

Bledsoe played all sports at Marfa High School and graduated in 1947 after playing guard and blocking back in the Shorthorns' 7-6 Regional Class B Football Championship win over Robert Lee.

He was a linebacker and center at NMMI while the Broncos played other New Mexico junior colleges in a league he compares to Texas Class 5-A high school football. They also tried the Texas Tech freshmen with less than optimum results.

"I was surprised to get a plastic helmet because we had leather helmets at Marfa," Bledsoe said. "There was a fellow at Tech named Soda Pop Price whose job was to put his fist in my face every time I snapped the ball."

His dad was a World War I Army first lieutenant waiting to go to Europe when his unit was wiped out in the Battle of Verdun. The elder Bledsoe commanded the Texas State Guard during World War II and worried Nazi Germany would invade through Mexico "if Hitler won in Europe," said his son, whose mom was Lolla Bunton.

Leaving law school for the Air Force from 1951-53 during the Korean War, Bledsoe was a personnel officer with 51st Bomb Squadron B-29 crews at Lake Charles, La., and MacDill Air Force Base, Fla.

"Morale was low because the planes were getting shot down by MIGs flown by Russian pilots," he said. "We lost a third of them because their .50 caliber machine guns weren't calibrated to hit jets."

First cousin of the late U.S. District Judge Lucius Bunton, a humorous man with whom Bledsoe had a warm relationship, he worked for Stubbeman, McRae from 1959 until forming his firm in 1974.

Cotton Bledsoe's other original partners were Charlie Tighe, Bob Dawson, John Woodside, Dick McMillan, Tevis Herd, Bill Morrow, who later left the firm, and the late Bill Cotton. It has 37 lawyers, including 18 partners, and is "covered up with work" from the oil boom, Bledsoe said.

He and his first wife, Evelyne, had Robert Jr. of Grapevine, David and William of Midland and Beverly McLane of Dallas. After a 1984 divorce he married Bennie Holladay, whose son, Heath Pennell, is in Lubbock. He has 12 grandchildren and a great-grandchild.

As senior warden of St. Nicholas Episcopal Church, he helped lead the June 2005 departure of 270 members to form Christ Church Midland because the American Episcopal Church had ordained a homosexual bishop, disputed Jesus Christ's resurrection and said Jesus "was just one way" to redemption.

The now retired Rev. Jon Stasney said it exemplifies Bledsoe's concern with principles. "Now we're planting churches in Lubbock, San Angelo and Odessa," Stasney said.

"We opened St. James Anglican Church in Lubbock and Anglican Church of the Good Shepherd in San Angelo. They're meeting in a home in Odessa. Bob is fluent in Spanish because he grew up at Marfa and he's taught classes in the works of C.S. Lewis.

"He uses his position as an attorney to witness to his faith when he can help with family crises."

Twenty-five people from Bledsoe's church and office spend 30 minutes a week reading and being read to by students of Crockettt Elementary School. He is a former marathon runner, triathlete and distance bicycle rider who walks and lifts weights for 30-45 minutes a day.

He was president of the Midland Salvation Army and Casa de Amigos and a board member of Midland United Way.

Having hunted with him for 40 years, Scott Hickman said he "is a natural optimist who wakes up like that every day.

"He sees the glass as half full and filling. Bob's wife and I have a biting, dry sense of humor and Bob and my wife, Gladys, don't. So a lot of our humor goes over their heads."

The petroleum engineer is better at wing shooting with his Browning over and under double barrel 28 gauge shotgun. Bledsoe excels at clay pigeon shooting with his Browning 20 gauge.

"We got too old to chase blue quail in Upton County, so we go after Bobwhite in Fisher County," said Hickman, whose four English pointers have found the birds since Bledsoe's beloved Golden Retriever George died at age 16 in 1984.

A mineral title expert, Bledsoe won a 1980s reversal of a Texas Supreme Court ruling that a deed's granting clause disposed of all issues regardless of what else the deed said, validating the "four corners rule" that a deed's totality should hold sway, the Bar noted.

He survived prostate cancer with radiation treatments in 1998 and the next year got dystonia, which painfully constricted his face and neck for six months. Dr. Gregory Bartha treats him every three months with six shots of Botox in his face and 10 in his neck.

"It's through pain that we grow," said Bledsoe, smiling.

He is happiest when remembering Bunton Ranch, founded in 1895 but now sold. "My dad was kind and gentle," he said.

"We lived in a tiny two-bedroom house and he went to work at 6:30 to 7 a.m. He'd come home at dark and work by our coal oil stove until midnight. That was my picture of what a job was.

"We called the spring and fall roundups 'The Work.' I would get up just before dawn to saddle the mule and bring in the horses. I remember the heavy dew and how fresh and quiet and beautiful it was.

"The horses were hiding in draws because they knew when they were caught, they'd have to work all day. They were kind of dumb because they hid in the same places a lot. I'd come in around 8 with 8 to 10 horses and a big appetite. Life was a lot of fun at the ranch."